Digital prints looking flat

[doug_lee__cinnaminson__nj]

I am just beginning to get serious about digital

photography/printing and need some guidance.

 

I am printing from photoshop cs to an Epson 1280 using Epson

colorlife paper (Image source Canon 10D). When comparing a print

from my printer to one from my lab (MF 120 film source) the inkjet

print looks flat. Is this typical?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

[john falkenstine]

I use Premium Luster "E" Surface Epson Catalog Number S041405 and get excellent results. Are you printing black and white or color?

[chip]

Hi Doug,

 

A flat image from a 1280 is usually due to incorrect color management settings somewhere along the line. Are you calibrating and profiling your editing monitor? If so you should have used the custom setting in the Epson pop-up print menu and turned off all color management.

 

I let Adobe do what it does best and have Adobe PS CS set to manage all the color for me from start to finish. The Epson has good profiles for the Epson papers I use and I use these profiles in Adobe PS CS for the output. Works like a charm, printed output colors are pretty much what I see on the screen.

 

The Epson 1280 can print painfully bright, saturated images. Flat color is not due to the printer.

 

HTH

[doug_lee__cinnaminson__nj]

I am printing color. I have not profiled/calibrated my system, yet. Although, what I see on the screen is pretty close to what the 1280 outputs. I have color management on the 1280 turned off. I downloaded P.I.M II sw from Epson which gave me some generic profiles for certain papers and the 1280.

 

The colors are not flat. It is more the image itself. Not as much depth as the ones from my lab.

 

Well, I am not going to obsess (sp?) over this for now. I am scheduled for an intensive 4-day Photoshop class in NYC next month afterwhich I hope to have a better understanding of the digtal workflow, advantages and limitations.

 

Thanks for the replies.

 

-Doug

[rayliguori]

Doug,

 

As a fellow Jersey boy, I highly recommend that you check out classes at the International Center of Photograpghy (www.icp.org) in Manhattan. I took a week-end seminar on color management that will tell you everything you need about getting your prints to look their best. As part of the class you use ICP's top of the line equipment to make your own printer profiles. I also have the Epson 1280 and after a long period of frustration, the custom profiles finally solved my problems. Good luck. [i have no affiliation with ICP except that I have an annual membership to the museum].

[doug_lee__cinnaminson__nj]

Raymond, us Jersey boyz think alike. I signed up for ICP's Intensive Photoshop I course in January. I've taken three bw darkroom courses from them previously. Good school. I'll probably want to buy a Mac after using their equipment!

 

Take care, Doug

[jonathan_borden]

There is somewhat of a learning curve to using photoshop, and indeed if you don't do

things quite right, your inkjet prints will not be up to the quality of lab prints. If your

monitor and ICC profiles are not properly calibrated, your prints will not look like

those on the screen.

 

If your prints do look like those on the screen then you are in good shape. In this case

the problem would be that your images don't look 'snappy' on the monitor itself. In

that case try adjusting your Image->Adjustment->Levels... to be sure your "tonal

range" is maximized, as well as your Image->Adjustment->Curves... to make sure

your images have the proper contrast.

 

Assuming your monitor and printer ICC profiles are correct, if the adjusted image on

the screen looks snappy, the print should also look snappy.

[chip]

Hi Doug,

 

If your paper output looks good but lack depth you may still have a monitor problem if your images match the paper output. Your monitor's gamma level and gamma response curves may be out of wack if it's not a "better" or high-end monitor. This is what a hardware and software color calibration system will help resolve.

 

Your monitor whatever it is has certain charateristics that unless calibrated and profiled will limit the accuracy of the images that it can display. This is shown by images that look okay on the screen and output that has a limited grey scale and reduced color gammut. By calibrating your monitor to maximize your monitor's grey and color range and then profiling or charaterizing it to learn how it acts and mapping the differences you can achive a MUCH better representation of the image on screen as it will look when output.

 

When you say "flat" but you say the paper output matches the screen I think that your images must lack the full black and white range. This is probably due to poor gamma setting and gamma response curves and you are limited in what you can get out of the image because your monitor is not calibrated well enough to show the full range of black and white.

 

The other problem as Jonathan mentions (and this is just as likely), is that your image file is not taking advantage of the full grey scale that your Epson 1280 can output. So when the images are printed they look compressed and lack sparkle. This is also due to not having true black in the image and printing the images with a compressed grey scale or dynamic range.

 

Do as Jonathan suggested, open one of your "problem" image files and look at the levels tool. Does the levels histogram fully occupy the scale from left to right or is it bunched up in the middle or one of the ends? If it's not covering the whole scale the grey scale and dynamic range is being compress on output and you will see dull, flat lifeless images with no snap.

 

HTH